Two moments we’ll hear about repeatedly during next week’s U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in suburban Philadelphia will be Ben Hogan’s fabled 1-iron shot at the 72nd hole in 1950 and Lee Trevino’s tossing a rubber snake to Jack Nicklaus at the start of their 18-hole playoff in 1971.

We have probably golf’s most iconic photographic image – made from directly behind by Life magazine lensman Hy Peskin during Hogan’s perfect follow-through — to give the first moment its deserved immortality.

YouTube keeps alive the second and the snake gag, as much as anything, demonstrates how different big-time pro golf was, then and now. Can you imagine, say, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia, all grim-faced and owly, set for an 18-hole playoff for the U.S. Open title when one of them pulls a rubber snake out of his golf bag and tosses it to the other? Someone would burst into tears, the Twitter universe would explode, Nike and adidas would immediately apologize to offended herpetologists and a lawsuit would be filed on behalf of traumatized fans.

Back then Trevino, who did crazy things for fun, and Nicklaus both laughed it off and then went out and played. Trevino won, but not because Nicklaus was “unnerved,” as long-distance psychologists would suggest. Trevino simply played better.

Snakes aside, thouogh, it’s Hogan’s legendary shot that deserves the return to the spotlight. He had been nearly killed in a car accident the year before, initially informed by doctors he would never again walk unaided, then assured he would never play golf again. He overcame those diagnoses, resumed his career and was back in his cherished U.S. Open, in those days contested over 72 holes in three days, with 36 on Saturday. Hogan began the day a shot off the lead, but common wisdom suggested 10 miles of walking surely would be too much for Hogan’s heavily bandaged legs. He was limping badly and nearly toppled over numerous times. Merion legend says Hogan announced he was through with five holes to go, but went on when his caddie admonished him that he didn’t work for quitters. His legs were failing him, though, and what once was a three-shot lead had evaporated by that 72nd hole, an uphill 458-yard par-four. Hogan was literally surrounded by 10,000 fans; spectators lined the entire hole and green three- and four-deep and followed players in the fairway. (This is where Peskin made his photo, bracing his camera on a spectator’s shoulder.)

Chroniclers wrote, as did Hogan in his own book later, that he hit a 2-iron for his approach to the 18th green, needing par to catch co-leaders Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio. Nearly everyone else had hit wooden clubs into that daunting finishing hole, but whatever iron Hogan hit, it flew straight and true, within 35 feet of the cup. His two-putt par put him into a three-man playoff the next day. Hogan won that, too, by four shots over Mangrum and six over Fazio, the margin padded when Mangrum took a two-shot penalty on the 16th hole for — get this — neglecting to properly mark his ball when he picked it up to blow off a bug. Imagine that kind of mistake replicated today in a major championship; the social-media world would explode again.

Hogan, by the way, later amended it to a 1-iron that he hit and so went the legend. He had his locker rifled later that night and the 1-iron and golf shoes were stolen. The club reappeared nearly 30 years later in a dusty bag bought by a collector; Hogan verified it as the missing weapon and it now hangs in a glass case at the USGA museum. There’s no official word on where Trevino’s rubber snake ended up.

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